James Damore has an ‘above decent’ chance of winning his legal case against Google

An expert in California labor law tells Business Insider that Damore has a better chance of winning his case than people may think.That’s because Damore’s case is NOT about free speech, discrimination, or his rights as an “at-will” worker.Damore filed under a section of the law that deals with protecting statements made by workers’ rights activists who have questions about wages and conditions.Google may have difficulty establishing that he broke the company’s code of conduct because he used message boards the company provided to allow employees to discuss these issues, and because his manifesto repeatedly states he favors diversity and intended to “increase women’s representation in tech.”

Rather, the provision governs what workers are allowed to talk about in the workplace about pay, conditions, promotions, and other practices. The law was crafted to protect the right of union organisers to discuss pay rates with their colleagues, and more recently to protect anyone asking questions at work about who gets paid what, and why.

On that basis, he has a fighting chance, according to Valerie Sharpe, a labor lawyer based in the San Francisco area. She told Business Insider that Damore’s chances of success were “a little bit above decent.” Human-resources lawyers at other tech companies in the Bay Area are following the case closely for that reason, she says.

“Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3).”

“The crux of his claim is whether Google penalized him for raising concerns about working conditions (i.e., unfair treatment of white men?)” Sharpe said. “Whether the manifesto really constitutes a ‘concern about working conditions’ and whether he was acting for the good of others will be the dispositive issues. I am not aware of any cases that are exactly on point, but there are certainly cases that litigate this issue and cases where employees are returned to work.”

Damore doesn’t have to prove that the allegations made in his manifesto are true

“Damore’s possible claims really have nothing to do with whether white males are discriminated against in wages and promotion,” Sharpe said. “It is about whether he was fired because he complained that Google’s diversity efforts were unfair to men. He doesn’t have to prove the allegation, just that he made the claim for the purpose of advancing working conditions of himself and others.”

Google’s other problem in defending this case would be to establish that Damore broke company policy by publishing the manifesto. Its employee code of conduct prohibits employees from discriminating against one another based on sex or race.

“Googlers are expected to do their utmost to create a workplace culture that is free of harassment, intimidation, bias, and unlawful discrimination,” it says.

The company presumably might argue that Damore’s manifesto was an example of using a company message board to post a discriminatory statement that violated the policy. The manifesto argued that “biological causes … may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership.” No doubt many women at Google complained internally that it was being circulated on Google’s employee message boards.

But the manifesto was specifically worded. It repeatedly states that Damore favors diversity, but merely has a different view on how to achieve it, and it questions only whether Google’s current efforts to encourage women and minorities are fair. The intent of the manifesto was to “suggest ways to address” biological differences between men and women “to increase women’s representation in tech without resorting to discrimination,” it says.

Sharpe said: “I have conducted probably 100 workplace investigations to assess whether employee complaints about harassment and discrimination violate employer codes of conduct, and I am not sure I would find this to be a violation of a code that merely prohibited ‘unlawful’ harassment and discrimination.”

Lastly, Google may have trouble establishing that using its message board was a violation of policy, given that the company provides message boards precisely to allow workers to discuss workplace issues.

“Because startups like Google have lots of message boards and employer-sponsored forums for employees to discuss work issues (i.e., employee resource groups), Google will have challenges establishing a policy violation,” Sharpe said.

Of course, the irony here is that if Damore wins, it could be regarded as a big victory for conservatives who work in tech, though the win would strengthen the kind of workers’ rights that are traditionally the focus of the left.